Although the Bengals kept their season alive by beating the Broncos in overtime Saturday, the Dolphins are ahead of the AFC North team in the wild-card pecking order. It will still take the Broncos losing to a Chiefs team prepared to sit starters in Week 18, but the Dolphins would advance if they won and Denver’s losing streak hit three.
Miami’s chances of winning in Week 18 do involve a Jets team that did not account itself well in Buffalo on Sunday, but the Dolphins are far from certain to have their quarterback available in their regular-season finale.
Tua Tagovailoa missed Week 17 with a hip injury, and although the Dolphins navigated a Browns team starting the potentially overmatched Dorian Thompson-Robinson at QB, the AFC East club may have secured a playoff spot by now had Tagovailoa not landed on IR earlier this season. Mike McDaniel‘s club fared poorly while its starter missed time due to a concussion, and the hip injury he sustained recently is not healing as the team hoped.
McDaniel said Tagovailoa’s status is in a “gray area” for Week 18 and that he was not medically cleared to play in Cleveland, via NFL.com’s Cameron Wolfe. The Dolphins started Tyler Huntley against the Browns. After a 22-for-26 performance that included 225 yards and a touchdown, he may hear his number called once again.
Miami is now 2-4 in games Tagovailoa did not finish due to injury this season, falling toward the bottom of the league in offense during the starter’s initial absence. Huntley started both wins, with Skylar Thompson also at the controls in a Dolphins loss this season. The former multiyear Ravens backup, Huntley has enjoyed more time to get up to speed in McDaniel’s offense since Tua’s concussion-generated IR trip. But this is becoming all too familiar territory for the Dolphins, who are now committed long term to their southpaw starter.
Tagovailoa has missed five games this season, this coming after he missed six (counting a wild-card game) in 2022. The former No. 5 overall pick also missed time due to injury in 2020 and 2021, and his draft status was affected by the significant hip injury he suffered to close out his Alabama career. Tua played all 18 Dolphins games last season, helping him secure a four-year extension that came with $93.2MM guaranteed at signing and $167.2MM guaranteed in total. This season, however, has not brought the Dolphins much comfort on the availability front.
If the Broncos do slip up against a diminished version of the two-time defending champs, the prospect of Tagovailoa’s playoff ability would stand to come up. For now, the fifth-year passer has some time to recover. But the nature of this injury brings cause for concern given his past.
If not for the playoff implications, there would be little reason to watch some of the games next week.
So either the Dolphins are being coy about whether or not Tua will play on Sunday or his injury could be serious enough that he may again not be available for the playoff game. Either way it’s a tiresome thread. It would be peak Dolphins for Tua to miss the last two games then start a game for the first time in three weeks in the playoffs, then get injured and watch from the sidelines as Miami gets slapped around and eliminated by a better team.
How many fingers am I holding up ?
“Eleven.”